The Black Jack – Jack Daniels Whiskey

For 101 of its 146 years of operation, sales of its Tennessee sour mash whiskey directly from its distillery have been banned ‒ because Lynchburg, home to Jack Daniel’s, is a dry county. Dave Hughes meanders down memory lane.

It was in 1984, following the Olympics in Los Angeles that was so memorable for South Africans because of the drama surrounding the encounter between barefoot Bloemfonteinse meisie Zola Budd and cry baby Mary Decker, that I flew to Nashville, Tennessee. The intention was to take a slow drive through the beautiful rolling countryside of Tennessee and Kentucky and eventually fly out of Louisville – where I had gained some experience years earlier, working at the massive Seagrams distillery.

I’d been at a Wine Educator’s conference in San Luis Obispo on the West Coast and was looking forward to revisiting the fabled blue grass state of Kentucky where I’d also previously enjoyed a tour of the quaint Maker’s Mark operation at Loretto.

An important part of my plan was to spend a day with the Gentleman Jack in Lynchburg. One cannot drive that area without discovering how odd American lawmakers can be – and I’m not talking about the guys with 5-pointed stars on their chests and six-guns at their hips but the legislators. Back then, fireworks could be sold in certain states but not others. Kentucky’s roads were lined with massive barns painted bright yellow or red, festooned with signs depicting explosions and massive hoardings advertising dealers like Loco Joe and Sad Sam who had “Unbeatable Sky Tracer”, “Biggest Bang” and “Thunder Flash” all available over the counter. All quite mind boggling!

Then I discovered the rather startling hangover from Prohibition: that of County lines where filling stations on one side of the road had beer vending machines while just a few paces away, the other side was “dry” because the county line went down the middle of the road!

Which leads me to Jack Daniel’s distillery in Moore County – which is “dry”. So visitors to the distillery can buy just about any souvenir bearing the famous Jack Daniel’s name but not the actual product! After a tour of the distillery you are politely offered Jack Daniel’s lemonade and even given a recipe to make it!

Lynchburg
Lynchburg boasts a population of 361 people, many of whom are employed at the Jack Daniel’s distillery, as their forebears have been for many generations. The story goes that Jack Daniel learned the art of whisky making from a Baptist preacher. He started his operation in 1866, at a time when the temperance movement was gaining traction and becoming so powerful that many distilleries were shutting their doors. Old man Jack realized that the downturn provided an opportunity for the bold. He knew exactly where he wanted to build his distillery. In the heart of Lynchburg, where the legendary Alfred Eaton had established the area’s original distillery: in a hollow where the now famous Cave Spring issues forth. It was Eaton who is believed to have discovered that leaching whiskey through charcoal mellowed and purified the spirit. The hollow is just on the outskirts of the little town of Lynchburg, separated from the town by a small forest, and backs into a rugged ravine which, in a few hundred metres, meets a limestone cliff. At the bottom of this is the cave where the water comes bubbling out.

The distillery sprawls across an 1 800 acre compound and boasts nine production areas covering all aspects of the manufacturing process which sees 150 million bottles of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 exported to 130 countries every year. Encompassed in this is the grain mill, fermentation area, stills, rick yard where the charcoal is produced, mellowing room, barrel filling, all important ageing warehouses and the bottling plant.

Just three whiskies are produced here – the traditional Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7, Gentleman Jack and Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel.

Interesting Statistics
Some of the statistics are mindboggling: the lime spring has never run dry and issues forth at a constant 56° Fahrenheit (13.3° Celsius); a million pounds (500 000kg) of yellow corn is used every day, making up 80% of the grain in Jack Daniel’s – the rest is split between Rye and malted barley – and the plant keeps one day’s supply of raw materials on hand at all times.

There are a whole lot of myths surrounding Jack Daniel’s: no-one knows precisely when he was born (but you knew that from the adverts, right?), why it’s called Old No. 7 – although the theories range from the number of the first batch approved to the number of girlfriends or Jack’s seventh attempt at distillation.

One scientific fact is that the same strain of yeast that Old Man Jack used is still cultivated on a daily basis, checked meticulously in the laboratory every day, and goes into every single fermentation at Jack Daniel’s.

There are 64 fermentation vats of 140 000 gallons each (530 000 litres) –enough to fill three million bottles of Jack! After fermentation the low beer goes to the whiskey stills – all transferred at the click of a mouse from a hi-tech control room. Four stills are put to work turning the beer into spirit –which it does at the rate of 1000 pints (473 litres) every minute!

An important part of the process is the filtering through sugar maple charcoal. This particular wood is used because it’s utterly neutral – and has no smell or taste so thus doesn’t affect the whiskey. After 6 days of mellowing by slowly being dripped through 10 feet of pea-sized granules of charcoal, the whisky goes to barrel – 2 000 of them every day. Eight trucks a day travel from the cooperage in Louisville to bring these 2000 brand new casks which impart the colour and between 40 to 50% of the flavour to the final product.

The maturation warehouses are seven stories tall and around 50 years old – there are 77 of them scattered around the compound; spaced with enough distance between them because of the ever-present risk of fire from stray sparks igniting the evaporating vapours.

That’s where the magic happens – and the whiskey takes on its special character. Master distiller Jeff Arnett (yes, you’ve heard his Southern twang in the radio commercials…) says the temperature and humidity fluctuations within each warehouse and each barrel’s location affects its flavour. The higher up in the stack it is, the more the temperature varies so it’s vital for all records to be well maintained and very detailed. Those barrels which are highest and hottest tend to be reserved for the Single Barrel range because they undergo the most evaporation over the four to seven years that they’re matured.

Too much time in barrel and the whiskey turns bitter. Arnett says there should be a balance between sweet vanilla, caramel and butterscotch notes with a nice finish of toasted oak.

The distillery
It’s hard to miss the Jack Daniel’s distillery since there are large roadside hoardings providing directions from 20 miles around. Incredibly well geared for tourists with beautifully laid out grounds with rolling lawns, picnic spots, there are lots of trees and shady kennels for pets which are not allowed on the distillery tour. Throughout the property there are drinking fountains tapped directly from the spring.

As mentioned, no tasting follows the tour since it’s illegal but the nearest places where you can purchase the product are clearly marked on a map handed to all visitors! (But then most American distilleries do not do tasting because of the legal problems that could arise after leaving the premises, especially drivers.) Visitors are encouraged to visit the little town of Lynchburg to spend their money on Jack D memorabilia. I’m proud of my shirt that proclaims me an official field taster of Jack Daniel’s – because I’ve been there, done that and got the T-shirt!

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Posted by WhiskyMag on Feb 12 2012. Filed under Brand Focus, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry